Religion Over Science?

(Not My) President Bush has announced plans to name Dr. W. David Hager to head up the FDA's (Food & Drug Administration) Reproductive Health Drug Advisory Committee. For those of you not familiar with Hager he is the man who in his book “Stress & the Woman's Body” in lieu of medical advice tells women that they should read from the bible & pray a lot in order to deal with premenstrual syndrome. This is also the same bible which states that if a woman is found out to not be a virgin she should be taken out & stoned to death. Dr. Hager is also the author of “As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then & Now.”

Needless to say Doc Hager's views on reproductive healthcare are far outside the mainstream for reproductive technology. According to former patients Hager won't even prescribe birth control to unmarried women. I guess Jesus wants us to be fruitful & multiply, reason & world hunger be damned.

Apparently misleading the public is ok with god though. Hager's resume also describes himself as a University of Kentucky professor. According to an article in Time, a university official at Kentucky University debunks Dr. Hager's claim to be a professor there stating that the good doctor's appointment is “part time and voluntary and involves working with interns at Lexington's Central Baptist Hospital, not the university itself.”

One of the most important studies that are to be overseen by Hager & his panel is the study of hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women. This is one of the biggest controversies in health care today. According to Time, “some conservatives are trying to use doubts about such therapy to discredit the use of birth-control pills, which contain similar compounds. The panel also made the key recommendation in 1996 that led to approval of the "abortion pill," RU-486-a decision that abortion foes are still fighting. Hager assisted the Christian Medical Association last August in a "citizens' petition" calling upon the FDA to reverse itself on RU-486, saying it has endangered the lives and health of women.”

Another decision old white men get to make regarding what women can & cannot do with their bodies.

So who will win? Religion or science?? Has the Bush Regime proven itself once more to be the great purveyor of all things wrong, evil & reactionary ?? When does this idiot's village masquerading as a country realize that enough is enough?? Send this figurehead back to the hole in Texas he crawled out of & make an honest whore out of us all. Elect Kerry. That other millionaire, Yale graduate, Skull & Cross Bones lying son of a bitch who will support the interests of the Elite & continue Our Generation's Vietnam unabated (albeit without the cool soundtrack) & who will probably deliver his well rehearsed lines with all the verve of a Cagney or a John Wayne but with only half the sincerity.